"We've had a most glorious time," she said. "He's ever so much
better. He raced me for twenty yards home. Why are you all in the
dark?"
Leonora could hear Edward going about in his room, but, owing to
the girl's chatter, she could not tell whether he went out again or
not. And then, very much later, because she thought that if he
were drinking again something must be done to stop it, she
opened for the first time, and very softly, the never-opened door
between their rooms. She wanted to see if he had gone out again.
Edward was kneeling beside his bed with his head hidden in the
counterpane. His arms, outstretched, held out before him a little
image of the Blessed Virgin--a tawdry, scarlet and Prussian blue
affair that the girl had given him on her first return from the
convent. His shoulders heaved convulsively three times, and
heavy sobs came from him before she could close the door. He
was not a Catholic; but that was the way it took him.
Leonora slept for the first time that night with a sleep from which
she never once started.
III
AND then Leonora completely broke down--on the day that they
returned to Branshaw Teleragh. It is the infliction of our
miserable minds--it is the scourge of atrocious but probably just
destiny that no grief comes by itself.
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